Meetings
by gussiegal5
Summary: Two very different meetings that Harry and John have with each other. Part of AU Dresden Series


Title: Meetings

Rating: Teen

Warning: wee bit o' language and some implications of torture

Relationships: Harry Dresden/John Marcone

Characters: Harry Dresden, John Marcone, and Hendricks

Summary: Two very different meetings that Harry and John have with each other.

Set between Exuro and Surrender with really, really mild (blink and you'll miss it) spoilers for 'Turn Coat'

DRESDENMARCONEDRESDENMARCONE

Hendricks had never been a man who had ever questioned the type of life that he led. He wasn't a stupid man, far from it, but he had a linear mind one that liked to focus on a single track. He couldn't hope to keep up with Marcone's tracks, which twisted and looped around each other in a Gordian knot that only he could find the center of; but then that wasn't what he had been hired for.

He had been working for Marcone since before he was anybody in the crime syndicate that led Chicago's illegal enterprises for the most part. He continued to be a loyal follower now that Marcone's influence and brutality had spread to overtake the syndicate, which had effectively demolished the previous regime.

Hendricks had never been a bully but he was well aware of just how intimidating his presence could be. Marcone used his bodyguard for less subtle scare tactics and muscle flexing when his own brand of meeting room intimidation failed to do the job.

Hendricks didn't physically fear many people, Marcone was one of the few and Harry Dresden was another.

Harry Dresden was also somebody in the world of crime. But where Marcone dealt with the mundane, Dresden seemed to run any sort of illicit magic activity that went on in Chicago. Their union had effectively created the first completely unified crime organization since the ages of knights and castles that dealt with every sort of crime, and the two men held Chicago in a stone grip that was rarely covered in velvet.

Hendricks found it amusing how little the two types of crime truly overlapped. The mundanes may have been hopelessly unaware of what was going on in the dark Undertown.

Still more of them were prey for the bump in the night crowd but that didn't mean that the supernatural element knew a hell of a lot about what was going on crime wise in the mundane world. Mundanes did their thing and the boogey monsters did theirs and never the twain shall meet.

Though there were some exceptions. The Vampire Courts in particular had once had a firm grasp on a lot of the human trafficking that went through Chicago; but the removal of the Red Court and Dresden's domination over the White Court, that had ended with Dresden's half-brother running the show in Chicago, meant that they at least were no longer such a huge threat towards the residents of Chicago.

Dresden's skyrocketing success in the world of magical crime permanently removed the ignorance towards the mundane world. Unlike a lot of the baddies that were after domination, he was actually capable of blending in with the world at large and he was also willing to give mundanes more thought than merely as a food supply.

Over the years Hendricks had seen Dresden's plans come to fruition, and scary plans they were. But he also remembered when the two men met for the first time after the incident where one of Marcone's stupider lackeys had managed to steal _something_ from Dresden, though neither Hendricks nor Marcone had any idea what it was.

The meeting was explosive and had reminded Hendricks of two dogs in heat meeting for the first time, a lot of teeth baring and fur raising, with an inevitable conclusion. Though hell if he would ever tell two of the scariest men in Chicago that.

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Dresden strode into the warehouse; Hendricks had known that he and Marcone were going to meet the man considered to be the head of most of the magical nastiness that took place in Chicago.

Hendricks knew that the man had slowed down the White Court Vampires consumption of humans and he had managed to completely kick out the Red Court. Something about setting ablaze several tenement buildings that were filled with the corpse-like nasties.

Hendricks also knew that Dresden had done something that managed to keep a lot of the fairies from entering Chicago. Whatever it was, Hendricks was pretty sure it involved some fairly nasty blood magic and a couple of ritual sacrifices.

He knew all of these things, but the one thing that Hendricks hadn't known was what Dresden looked like. When he stepped through the door, he barely managed to restrain himself from gaping at the man like a largemouth bass.

It was the same man that had entered the house that Marcone had been settling a deal in, when Marcone had sent men to check out what had happened a couple of hours later, the house was nothing more than ash though nothing else, not even the grass, had burned.

Long and lean, with enough muscle in the shoulders to carry a sizeable threat, Harry Dresden was intimidating without the knowledge that he could burn both of them into ash without a whole lot of effort.

Hendricks managed to restrain a gulp as he recalled feeling he had had in the house that even if he had managed to fire a shot off the bullet wouldn't have been able to fly through the nearly tangible magic that swirled around the man no matter his mood.

Marcone stepped forward, leaving Hendricks in the shadows where he preferred to remain unless there was any sort of threat towards his employer. Hopefully the calm invitation that Dresden had extended, where he had promised three times not to start any sort of conflict with Marcone, meant that the only thing he wanted was to discuss business with his mundane counterpart.

"Marcone."

"Dresden."

"I have found a problem in my organization. It is inextricably meshed with your own in that it seems someone is using your men to deliberately cause me problems."

"Such as the theft of an important artifact which made you angry enough to burn down an entire house?"

"Such as."

"You don't blame me?"

"You're not that stupid."

"Ah."

Hendricks could feel Marcone's minute relaxation, it was doubtful that Dresden would have set up this meeting if he did have any doubts about what was going on but it was always nice to hear.

"Do you have any ideas about what these people are attempting to accomplish."

"I believe they're trying to start a feud between the two of us. An amateurish enough attempt but I have already started to cull my ranks of men who participated in this attempt. None of them knew anything."

"You're sure?"

"Very." Dresden's eyes seemed lit with an unholy flame.

Whether the scent of burning flesh was real or imagined it still had Hendricks restraining a recoil.

Dresden's eyes flicked towards him briefly before he looked back at Marcone and smiled slightly.

"I see you brought Cujo along. Did you not trust my word?"

"As it was thrice given I did. However I felt that trusting the rest of the world not to attempt my demise on my way to and from seeing you would be foolhardy. For some reason people don't like us."

Dresden's face broke out into an amused grin, white teeth flashing against his dark goatee.

"Ah how nice to meet a man of both worlds."

They were flirting, Hendricks realized. Verbally sparring with each other and he wondered what it would mean if the pair actually went beyond half meant words.

Hendricks had known about Marcone's preferences towards men for a long time, and he was hardly one to get in his bosses way. If the man liked men who were bigger than he was it meant nothing to Hendricks.

Marcone had shown no physical interest in him and that was all that really mattered. Hopefully John's brain would be a couple of steps ahead of his dick; otherwise this had a big possibility of turning pear shaped.

Dresden slid a little closer to Marcone, his voice a rumbling purr that Hendricks could see gave his boss a spine-shivering reaction.

Although it had been a long time since Dresden had last responded to anyone with anything remotely close to his actual reaction, Hendricks could see what the taller man's presence was doing to his boss.

Though he didn't have the same baseline of behavior for Dresden, Hendricks could see that Dresden's eyes had darkened as he got closer to Marcone and he seemed to inhaling more deeply as though trying to breathe in Marcone's scent.

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Shifting his attention back to the present day, Hendricks watched the two men. It had been a couple of years since that first meeting and where there had once been two alpha males meeting each other to fight, i.e. politely discuss, the logistics of routing out the spies and malcontents from their own organizations now the pair were working together with ease.

There was now a seamless organization that was jointly run by the two men, and which was growing rapidly past the boundaries of Chicago and whenever Hendricks thought about just how powerful his employer and his lover were he felt a shiver of precognition that the world would never be the same when these two men were done.

Hendricks was still an effective physical deterrent but Dresden had his own brand of magical power that meant he and his chosen partner had very little to fear from anyone that currently resided in or near North America.

The fact that Marcone happened to be that chosen partner meant that lately Hendricks had been having to deal with a lot less death threats from men who were tempted to try and gain control of Marcone's empire over his dead body.

The last moron to try hadn't even gotten close enough for Hendricks to be aware there was a problem before he ended up cooked extra crispy and thrown onto the island in the middle of Lake Michigan where _something _had eaten the remains and given Dresden a boost of power that seemed to be permanent in thanks.

Hendricks was pretty sure that there was some form of magical government that disapproved of that sort of thing. But if there were they had never shown their faces in Chicago to his knowledge and he would bet that was because Dresden managed to stay on their good side by the skin of his teeth and a lining of gold in their pockets.

At this point it was almost sad to see the way one of their latest acquisitions trembled in his set as the two men honed in for the kill.

"Now really Mr. Johnson," purred Marcone, "I feel it is only necessary to warn you that while you are not under oath in this proceeding, lying to us will garner you much worse than a charge of perjury against you."

Dresden paced behind the trembling small business owner who had come to them looking for more money to pour into the business because of a supposed lag in sales.

"The fact that you are stupid enough to try and pull this the day after we have received an accounting of your expenses and sales from the man who does your taxes means that you must be in desperate straits to attempt this." Marcone continued. His eyes were mercilessly cold but he managed to put a hint of cajoling camaraderie into his voice.

"W…what are you implying?"

"There is no implication," Dresden growled in the terrified mans ear. "Marcone has stated that you are trying to pull a fast one on us."

"So the only questions that remain are these." Marcone continued, "Are you really that much of a moron that you wouldn't know that we checked on your financial statements? Or were you aware of the risk but the problem was large enough that you couldn't handle without that money and personal enough that you didn't wish to involve us."

Johnson's eyes were desperate and his breath panted out of him in frantic gasps.

"They have my daughter. Said if I didn't give them all the money that I had on hand they'd kill her. They had the exact amount typed up in the ransom demand I didn't know whether or not this involved you and I can't risk going to the cops in case they find out what kind of work I do for you." His voice choked on a sob. "She's not back yet and it's been almost ten hours."

"Mr. Johnson." Purred Marcone, "The exploitation of children bothers me. The fact that you didn't come to me immediately is a problem that we will address at a later time. However, because of your many years of fine service in my employ I am willing to let this go for the moment. Give us the letter and then go home. We will deal with this from here."

Pulling the crumpled letter from the pocket of his suit Mr. Johnson placed it on the table with trembling fingers and managed to exit the boardroom on shaky legs.

Hendricks was there five hours later when Ms. Daisy Johnson was delivered into her waiting fathers arms, bruised and aching but otherwise unharmed.

He waited at the top of the stairs when Marcone and Dresden went down into a concrete bunker of a room, when they exited the room several hours later bloodstained and furious he watched them begin to plot.

He was pleased that the room had been soundproofed. Hendricks already had his share of nightmares he didn't need any more to add to the menagerie.


End file.
